Through analysis of 256 federal laws, 131 rules of operation and secondary sources were identified 409 advisory councils. 163 cases were public bodies of deliberation, where state and nongovernmental actors deliberate on various fields of public policy in public space. It discusses the main features of these spaces, including the subject and the area of government where these spaces fall and their functions, and measures the online public visibility of these bodies. We conclude that these participatory mechanisms are relatively abundant, but they are opaque. Only 53 per cent of these instances give any information to the public. Hence, we discuss its effectiveness and legitimacy as citizen participation mechanisms.